Chapter 4 - Sorting It Out
"Grab all the journals and notebooks," Harry instructed as he slipped his mask back on. "Hermione, take any books you'll think we need."
Draco pulled his mask on and Harry shoved a pile of books and papers into his arms.
"Oh," Hermione fretted as she snatched at various bound volumes, "I hate having to choose."
"We can always come back," Draco said. "Or at least I can. The wards will let me through."
"Fine," Hermione stacked up nine books, and they ran back through the room of plants.
Raps sounded on the front door as Harry led them back into the study. Hermione went through the floo first, turning back at the last minute to worry, "Can't we bring the pictures with –"
"Malfoy Manor!" Draco threw down the floo powder for her.
She disappeared in a snap of green fire, and Draco ducked into the fireplace next, taking Harry's armful of papers on top of his own. "Isn't that just like a girl? They always want to bring more stuff with them when –"
"Malfoy Manor," Harry threw the powder down.
Draco disappeared, and Harry stepped into the floo. He grabbed a handful of powder and as he flung it down and said the location, he heard the front door break open.
Harry ducked out of the fireplace in Malfoy Manor and hurried after Hermione and Draco up the side stairs. By the time Ron ushered Luna into the room, Hermione had already set up a work station on Draco's desk and had most books and journals open.
"All right," she rolled up her sleeves, "I'm going to need a chalk board, extra paper and quills, and we all need some food and drink, especially Luna. She's eating for two."
"The house elf can bring something up," Draco started, but Hermione looked so appalled that he amended, "I'll go down and find some. Harry, come help me."
"Do you think they'll come here looking for us?" Harry whispered as he went down the back stairs with Draco.
"No, not tonight," Draco said. "When Father went to Azkaban a year ago, Mother put up wards that would block intruders coming here at night."
"But we came here . . . at night."
Draco grinned, looking like a devilish pirate. "I changed the wards to allow you and the love birds to come in. I was secretly hoping you would rescue me from the tender loving care of my mother, but this works out just as well."
"Luna didn't set off the alarms?"
"She's carrying your child so maybe that's it. I do want to hear all about that later, when we have time."
"Don't count on it."
Harry followed Draco down to the enormous kitchen where a little house elf worked scrubbing the floors.
"Master Draco," the house elf, Mugsy, looked up, "Master Draco wants food?"
"Bring us anything good you can find," Draco pulled some trays out of a cabinet. "Harry, do you think Luna would like a cup of tea? She looked cold after riding with Ron, but that's because she didn't have her shoes on."
"She didn't?" Harry froze with his hand on the kettle. "I didn't even notice. She's not very good at taking care of herself. I guess I have to watch after her as well as everyone else. No matter, let's watch the great Harry Potter do all the work as always."
Harry slammed the kettle on the fire hook and braced his hands on the mantle, scowling into the blaze.
"Something on your mind, mate?" Draco raised an eyebrow.
"I'm still cut up about that room. Did you know that Snape was keeping track of me like that?"
"Not that kind of attention. He was terribly on to you this year, though. Did you do anything he didn't know about?"
Harry didn't answer.
"It makes you think though," Draco put cups, saucers, and spoons on one tray. "He was watching you carefully when the whole time you should have been watching him. He was the one with the plans after all, making things fall into place without you ever knowing. You have to feel rather stupid about that."
Harry turned back from the fire, furious.
"I can say what I want – I lost an eye," Draco pointed to his eye-patch. "Next time pay more attention to what's going on around you and less to the blond with the dreamy look."
"You're a prat," Harry helped put plates and food on other trays.
"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Missed the Most Obvious Signs," Draco smirked to himself. "I'm trying to make something out of Chosen One . . . maybe Clueless Drone, but it's not quite there yet. Give me a bit more time."
Harry felt rather proud for resisting the urge to beat Draco with one of the trays.
Twenty minutes later, they headed up the stairs with laden trays. Draco tried to carry two, but his balance was slightly off – "One of the problems of having one eye – bad depth perception" – so Harry carried two, Draco carried one, and Mugsy took the other.
Upstairs Hermione had Ron writing on a chalkboard they had propped over the desk, but Luna stood in the middle of the floor, swaying back and forth as she hummed softly.
Harry saw her bare feet peeping out below her skirt and he set the tray down before hurrying to her. "Sweetheart, you need to keep warm," He got her to sit in a chair and he took her icy feet between his calloused hands and started rubbing.
"I didn't notice I was cold," Luna leaned back in the chair. "I'm so tired and sleepy – you make me feel so good. I think I love you."
A sickening thud hit Harry – did he love Luna? Everything had happened so fast, so quick that he had barely time to think. Did he love her? Love love her like Ron and Hermione or Molly and Arthur or even his own parents? He would stay with her for the baby, but did that equal love?
"You can't sleep," Harry blurted out. "You need to eat and drink something first."
She reached down and smoothed over his untidy hair. "My sweet, sweet boy."
Harry got her tucked under a blanket, sipping hot tea and eating a sandwich.
By that time, Hermione and Ron had written all over the board and drawn lines to connect ideas. At the center of the board, she had written Harry, Snape, and Voldemort and the spells they had used when Snape scattered: Expelliarmus, Diffindo, Avada Kedavra.
Around the edges she had connected past events such as Harry's adoption, his parents' death, Snape's disappearance, and Voldemort's use of fire.
"Did I miss anything?" Hermione wrote Marks? at the bottom of the board. "You walked us through what happened before the final fight – Moretta, er Mrs. Longbottom and Snape transferring the marks. Then he stuns you and you lay there until it wears off."
"Right," Harry nodded. "I found Snape and Voldemort and we fought. We all said the spells at the same time, and Snape exploded when the light burned into him."
"That's right," Hermione nodded, her mouth smirking into that confident line she wore whenever she had almost solved a problem. "Well, this here all proves a theory, my theory of how to save Snape."
She waited expectantly, and Ron finally conceded, "Won't you tell us your theory?"
"Of course," she smiled, "this here," she waved her hands over the whole board, "is all connected to fire. Fire is the answer. Harry enters Snapdragon Manor through a non-working fireplace," Hermione started tracing lines across the board, "and he gets cursed, just a little curse. The way to burn it off? Snape gives him potions so he catches on fire, but fire that doesn't hurt. Harry causes two explosions in the summer – both involving magic and burning, but he survives both."
Harry made a face at remembering his punishments for the explosions, but Hermione kept going,
"Harry goes back to Hogwarts where one of the first spells he creates is light, light so bright it burns our eyes to look at it. Snape trains Harry to fight dragons who breathe what? Fire! In the training rooms, Harry often trained by dodging fire. Then we come to New Year's where we start the final fight with Voldemort by setting fire to Diagon Alley. That fire sets into action all the events, culminating in a final fight that ends in an explosion. So what we need to do is figure out the result of the three spells. Once we know that, we can trace down the results of the spell. The trail should lead us to Snape. What we need to do along the way is find a wizard who can perform re-gathering spells."
Hermione reached for a book of spells and opened it. "Snape has underlined various spells and written names by them, indicating that those people are masters at such spells. I think we should narrow the names down to potential wizards who would be able to perform the spells. I also think we should trace places from Snape's past because he is most likely scattered in those places."
She stood back, waiting for a response.
"Well, it's a start," Harry nodded his approval. "You got more out of this then I would have done. At least we have something to go on now."
Luna stirred in her chair, standing up and hugging the blanket around her shoulders. "I'm so sleepy," she yawned. "Draco, may I sleep on your bed in the other room for a while?"
"Of course, you can sleep there for tonight," Draco opened the door to his bedroom.
Luna paused by the board, gazing up at all the words and lines on the board. "So much work you've done. You always were able to do more work than anyone else."
Hermione tried not to look too proud.
"It's a shame none of it is right."
Everyone in the room froze. Ron's eyes went almost as big as the saucers on the tray.
"What?" Hermione looked shocked. "Not right?"
Luna paused in the bedroom door. "Well, it's not a matter of connecting points. It's like when Lavender tried to trick me into giving her my silver bracelet for her box of Bertie Bott's Beans. It's a matter of things being equal, really. That's all it is."
She went into the bed, leaving the group in stunned silence.
Hermione twitched her lips in annoyance, and Harry could tell she was trying to not say what she really wanted to say. She started flipping through the book, snapping the pages over with terse jerks of her wrist.
Draco had leaned against the wall to examine the board, his one eye scanning over the words and lines.
"Not right," Hermione finally let the words out. "Tells me it's not right and goes off to bed like a little –! And why does she get to talk so cryptically when I have to make sense of everything like I always do –"
"Oh!" Draco jumped up and snapped his fingers at the board. "I get it."
"Like hell you do!" Hermione burst out.
"No, no, look," Draco pointed at the board. "The marks. The marks! Things being equal! The marks weren't equal. That's the whole point."
Hermione stared at the board, and then the book tumbled out of her hands to the ground. "Dear me, you're right. How could I have missed it? Of course it's the marks. Oh, silly, silly Hermione."
"The marks?" Ron asked blankly.
Harry pulled up his sleeve and showed the Dark Mark that was still on his inner arm. "This mark."
"Yes," Hermione came to him and ran her fingers over the dark tattoo of the skull and snake, "you and Snape traded marks. But was the trade even? Oh, this changes everything."
She rushed to another book and started pouring over it.
"Now who's talking cryptically?" Ron grumbled.
"It's a magical trade," Draco explained. "Let's say I discover a new spell and I write it down and sell it to you for ten Galleons. I take the money and you take the spell. Whether the spell works or not depends on your magic, not mine. Magic doesn't care about money, just the user and his wand. I could sell it to you for a hundred Galleons. No difference in magic."
"Got you so far," Harry nodded dubiously.
"But your trade with Snape was about trading magical marks. You went into it willing, yes?"
"I guess. I didn't really know what he was doing before he did it."
"That doesn't matter," Hermione glanced up long enough to say. "The willingness of participants won't affect the equality of the trade."
"There you go," Draco said. "Magic always wants to equal things out. You force magic out of your wand, but the moment you stop, the magic stops because it's trying to stabilize. If a novice wizard tries to trade magic with a master wizard for any kind of control or power, the magic will weaken on the master's side and increase on the novice's side to balance out."
"So here it's about equality," Ron realized. "Because the marks aren't equal."
"Snape gets the tattoo from Voldemort," Draco underlined the name on the board. "Harry gets the scar from the night he defeats Voldemort for the first time."
"The scar was caused by Harry's mother sacrificing herself to save Harry." Ron said. "It connected Harry to Voldemort. That has to be stronger than a mark on one of his servants."
"So the marks aren't equal," Harry shrugged. "I still killed Voldemort."
"But that's the point," Hermione cried out. "Snape must have been going by the prophecy that said you had to kill Voldemort because he marked you. Snape thought if you switched marks he could just take your place. But the magic was on your side because it realized that he had taken the stronger mark. How long did it take you to shake off the stunning curse?"
"Only a few minutes," Harry realized. "Just a few minutes, really. That's all."
"Yes," Hermione smiled. "Your magic grew stronger to make up for the loss of your powerful mark."
"Let's go through the fight then," Ron looked at the three spells. "Harry shouts Expelliarmus which is supposed to unarm an opponent. Snape yells Diffindo which is supposed to sever an object or a spell or in dire circumstances a person. Voldemort yells the killing curse."
"The question is," Draco looked at board, "who had the strongest magic at the time?"
"It wasn't Snape," Hermione drew a line through his name. "Snape was not as strong as Voldemort because he had just gotten the scar and weakened his magic, even if he didn't know it."
"All of our lines of magic connected," Harry said. "Then they merged into Snape. He exploded then because he wasn't strong enough to push back. The magic was trying to equal power between us, not realizing that I didn't want it to be equal."
"But once Snape scatters, what does that do to Harry?" Ron asked. "Does his magic increase still? Is that why he's been all super-power lately?"
"I don't know," Hermione pursed her lips. "The equalizing magic should wear off after a while, but this trade was big. This trade was so big that it required Snape to adopt Harry and bond with him, then use a powerful witch to monitor the trade which needed blood spilled to be enacted."
Harry looked down at the Dark Mark. "It - it doesn't hurt anymore," he faltered. "But this means that I'm responsible for Snape's scattering. I thought it was Voldemort, but I had the most power because I – I won. If I hadn't gone in there, Snape would still be alive."
"Nonsense," Hermione straightened, her old confidence back. "Snape would have died without your help. Now, he's just scattered. We still are going to need a wizard who can re-gather someone, but now that we know it's the marks, we should trace that. Snape's been scattered to places connected with his new mark, I bet you anything."
"So where do we search?" Harry asked though he had a sinking feeling he knew the answer.
"I'm sorry," Hermione gave him a sympathetic look. "But we should search places where you were connected to the scar. The place your parents died, the Ministry of Magic where Sirius died, the Chamber of Secrets, maybe Diagon Alley..."
"The Dursleys," Harry's face fell. "That's where we have to go first."
"Why?" Ron asked.
"Because it's Snape with my scar and it would take him somewhere that I would never want to go," Harry sank down in the chair Luna had vacated. "I thought I'd never have to go there again."
His friends said nothing.
"This is just so typical of Snape," Harry pushed back the tantrum that trembled throughout him to be expressed. "Doing what he wants when he wants. If he hadn't switched marks, none of this would have happened. I would have fought Voldemort and won, and we'd all be getting ready for Valentine's Day in a few weeks instead of hiding out here."
"You don't know that," Hermione said, "and you can't prove it. You might not have been strong enough to win, even with your scar."
"Maybe, but I don't like the other mark," Harry pulled his sleeve over the Dark Mark. "I feel like I'm wearing the sign of the evil that I tried to defeat."
Ron and Hermione shared a look, but then she turned back to her book.
"We need to sleep here tonight," she said.
"They'll come looking here for you tomorrow," Draco said. "We need to leave before daybreak. We can sleep in the woods if we need to."
Ron yawned as he straightened. "The car can hold four. I'll fly behind on my broom. Tomorrow night we can sneak around the Durleys and see what we find."
"I'll have more information then," Hermione took an empty seat and reached for one of the journals.
"Mione, you have to sleep," Ron insisted.
"I will," Hermione started reading. "But first I need to know what kind of things Snape knew about Harry. What did he find in all his research?"
"Go to bed, mate," Ron told Harry. "I'll take care of her. You go sleep with Luna."
"Lovely," Draco reached for the empty teacups. "I guess I'll be the only one huddled alone tonight. Just me and my one eye."
"Oh, hush," Hermione told him.
Harry went into the dark bedroom and stripped down to his shirt and shorts and climbed into bed with Luna. She was deep asleep, but Harry pulled close to her.
He had never felt so alone, betrayed, and helpless. Even in the dark, he kept seeing pictures of himself in Snape's lab and the writing on Hermione's board. The journals were full of him, someone had stolen his scar, and he was going back to a place where he had never been loved.
He had never before felt less like a person.
Draco pulled his mask on and Harry shoved a pile of books and papers into his arms.
"Oh," Hermione fretted as she snatched at various bound volumes, "I hate having to choose."
"We can always come back," Draco said. "Or at least I can. The wards will let me through."
"Fine," Hermione stacked up nine books, and they ran back through the room of plants.
Raps sounded on the front door as Harry led them back into the study. Hermione went through the floo first, turning back at the last minute to worry, "Can't we bring the pictures with –"
"Malfoy Manor!" Draco threw down the floo powder for her.
She disappeared in a snap of green fire, and Draco ducked into the fireplace next, taking Harry's armful of papers on top of his own. "Isn't that just like a girl? They always want to bring more stuff with them when –"
"Malfoy Manor," Harry threw the powder down.
Draco disappeared, and Harry stepped into the floo. He grabbed a handful of powder and as he flung it down and said the location, he heard the front door break open.
Harry ducked out of the fireplace in Malfoy Manor and hurried after Hermione and Draco up the side stairs. By the time Ron ushered Luna into the room, Hermione had already set up a work station on Draco's desk and had most books and journals open.
"All right," she rolled up her sleeves, "I'm going to need a chalk board, extra paper and quills, and we all need some food and drink, especially Luna. She's eating for two."
"The house elf can bring something up," Draco started, but Hermione looked so appalled that he amended, "I'll go down and find some. Harry, come help me."
"Do you think they'll come here looking for us?" Harry whispered as he went down the back stairs with Draco.
"No, not tonight," Draco said. "When Father went to Azkaban a year ago, Mother put up wards that would block intruders coming here at night."
"But we came here . . . at night."
Draco grinned, looking like a devilish pirate. "I changed the wards to allow you and the love birds to come in. I was secretly hoping you would rescue me from the tender loving care of my mother, but this works out just as well."
"Luna didn't set off the alarms?"
"She's carrying your child so maybe that's it. I do want to hear all about that later, when we have time."
"Don't count on it."
Harry followed Draco down to the enormous kitchen where a little house elf worked scrubbing the floors.
"Master Draco," the house elf, Mugsy, looked up, "Master Draco wants food?"
"Bring us anything good you can find," Draco pulled some trays out of a cabinet. "Harry, do you think Luna would like a cup of tea? She looked cold after riding with Ron, but that's because she didn't have her shoes on."
"She didn't?" Harry froze with his hand on the kettle. "I didn't even notice. She's not very good at taking care of herself. I guess I have to watch after her as well as everyone else. No matter, let's watch the great Harry Potter do all the work as always."
Harry slammed the kettle on the fire hook and braced his hands on the mantle, scowling into the blaze.
"Something on your mind, mate?" Draco raised an eyebrow.
"I'm still cut up about that room. Did you know that Snape was keeping track of me like that?"
"Not that kind of attention. He was terribly on to you this year, though. Did you do anything he didn't know about?"
Harry didn't answer.
"It makes you think though," Draco put cups, saucers, and spoons on one tray. "He was watching you carefully when the whole time you should have been watching him. He was the one with the plans after all, making things fall into place without you ever knowing. You have to feel rather stupid about that."
Harry turned back from the fire, furious.
"I can say what I want – I lost an eye," Draco pointed to his eye-patch. "Next time pay more attention to what's going on around you and less to the blond with the dreamy look."
"You're a prat," Harry helped put plates and food on other trays.
"Harry Potter, the Boy Who Missed the Most Obvious Signs," Draco smirked to himself. "I'm trying to make something out of Chosen One . . . maybe Clueless Drone, but it's not quite there yet. Give me a bit more time."
Harry felt rather proud for resisting the urge to beat Draco with one of the trays.
Twenty minutes later, they headed up the stairs with laden trays. Draco tried to carry two, but his balance was slightly off – "One of the problems of having one eye – bad depth perception" – so Harry carried two, Draco carried one, and Mugsy took the other.
Upstairs Hermione had Ron writing on a chalkboard they had propped over the desk, but Luna stood in the middle of the floor, swaying back and forth as she hummed softly.
Harry saw her bare feet peeping out below her skirt and he set the tray down before hurrying to her. "Sweetheart, you need to keep warm," He got her to sit in a chair and he took her icy feet between his calloused hands and started rubbing.
"I didn't notice I was cold," Luna leaned back in the chair. "I'm so tired and sleepy – you make me feel so good. I think I love you."
A sickening thud hit Harry – did he love Luna? Everything had happened so fast, so quick that he had barely time to think. Did he love her? Love love her like Ron and Hermione or Molly and Arthur or even his own parents? He would stay with her for the baby, but did that equal love?
"You can't sleep," Harry blurted out. "You need to eat and drink something first."
She reached down and smoothed over his untidy hair. "My sweet, sweet boy."
Harry got her tucked under a blanket, sipping hot tea and eating a sandwich.
By that time, Hermione and Ron had written all over the board and drawn lines to connect ideas. At the center of the board, she had written Harry, Snape, and Voldemort and the spells they had used when Snape scattered: Expelliarmus, Diffindo, Avada Kedavra.
Around the edges she had connected past events such as Harry's adoption, his parents' death, Snape's disappearance, and Voldemort's use of fire.
"Did I miss anything?" Hermione wrote Marks? at the bottom of the board. "You walked us through what happened before the final fight – Moretta, er Mrs. Longbottom and Snape transferring the marks. Then he stuns you and you lay there until it wears off."
"Right," Harry nodded. "I found Snape and Voldemort and we fought. We all said the spells at the same time, and Snape exploded when the light burned into him."
"That's right," Hermione nodded, her mouth smirking into that confident line she wore whenever she had almost solved a problem. "Well, this here all proves a theory, my theory of how to save Snape."
She waited expectantly, and Ron finally conceded, "Won't you tell us your theory?"
"Of course," she smiled, "this here," she waved her hands over the whole board, "is all connected to fire. Fire is the answer. Harry enters Snapdragon Manor through a non-working fireplace," Hermione started tracing lines across the board, "and he gets cursed, just a little curse. The way to burn it off? Snape gives him potions so he catches on fire, but fire that doesn't hurt. Harry causes two explosions in the summer – both involving magic and burning, but he survives both."
Harry made a face at remembering his punishments for the explosions, but Hermione kept going,
"Harry goes back to Hogwarts where one of the first spells he creates is light, light so bright it burns our eyes to look at it. Snape trains Harry to fight dragons who breathe what? Fire! In the training rooms, Harry often trained by dodging fire. Then we come to New Year's where we start the final fight with Voldemort by setting fire to Diagon Alley. That fire sets into action all the events, culminating in a final fight that ends in an explosion. So what we need to do is figure out the result of the three spells. Once we know that, we can trace down the results of the spell. The trail should lead us to Snape. What we need to do along the way is find a wizard who can perform re-gathering spells."
Hermione reached for a book of spells and opened it. "Snape has underlined various spells and written names by them, indicating that those people are masters at such spells. I think we should narrow the names down to potential wizards who would be able to perform the spells. I also think we should trace places from Snape's past because he is most likely scattered in those places."
She stood back, waiting for a response.
"Well, it's a start," Harry nodded his approval. "You got more out of this then I would have done. At least we have something to go on now."
Luna stirred in her chair, standing up and hugging the blanket around her shoulders. "I'm so sleepy," she yawned. "Draco, may I sleep on your bed in the other room for a while?"
"Of course, you can sleep there for tonight," Draco opened the door to his bedroom.
Luna paused by the board, gazing up at all the words and lines on the board. "So much work you've done. You always were able to do more work than anyone else."
Hermione tried not to look too proud.
"It's a shame none of it is right."
Everyone in the room froze. Ron's eyes went almost as big as the saucers on the tray.
"What?" Hermione looked shocked. "Not right?"
Luna paused in the bedroom door. "Well, it's not a matter of connecting points. It's like when Lavender tried to trick me into giving her my silver bracelet for her box of Bertie Bott's Beans. It's a matter of things being equal, really. That's all it is."
She went into the bed, leaving the group in stunned silence.
Hermione twitched her lips in annoyance, and Harry could tell she was trying to not say what she really wanted to say. She started flipping through the book, snapping the pages over with terse jerks of her wrist.
Draco had leaned against the wall to examine the board, his one eye scanning over the words and lines.
"Not right," Hermione finally let the words out. "Tells me it's not right and goes off to bed like a little –! And why does she get to talk so cryptically when I have to make sense of everything like I always do –"
"Oh!" Draco jumped up and snapped his fingers at the board. "I get it."
"Like hell you do!" Hermione burst out.
"No, no, look," Draco pointed at the board. "The marks. The marks! Things being equal! The marks weren't equal. That's the whole point."
Hermione stared at the board, and then the book tumbled out of her hands to the ground. "Dear me, you're right. How could I have missed it? Of course it's the marks. Oh, silly, silly Hermione."
"The marks?" Ron asked blankly.
Harry pulled up his sleeve and showed the Dark Mark that was still on his inner arm. "This mark."
"Yes," Hermione came to him and ran her fingers over the dark tattoo of the skull and snake, "you and Snape traded marks. But was the trade even? Oh, this changes everything."
She rushed to another book and started pouring over it.
"Now who's talking cryptically?" Ron grumbled.
"It's a magical trade," Draco explained. "Let's say I discover a new spell and I write it down and sell it to you for ten Galleons. I take the money and you take the spell. Whether the spell works or not depends on your magic, not mine. Magic doesn't care about money, just the user and his wand. I could sell it to you for a hundred Galleons. No difference in magic."
"Got you so far," Harry nodded dubiously.
"But your trade with Snape was about trading magical marks. You went into it willing, yes?"
"I guess. I didn't really know what he was doing before he did it."
"That doesn't matter," Hermione glanced up long enough to say. "The willingness of participants won't affect the equality of the trade."
"There you go," Draco said. "Magic always wants to equal things out. You force magic out of your wand, but the moment you stop, the magic stops because it's trying to stabilize. If a novice wizard tries to trade magic with a master wizard for any kind of control or power, the magic will weaken on the master's side and increase on the novice's side to balance out."
"So here it's about equality," Ron realized. "Because the marks aren't equal."
"Snape gets the tattoo from Voldemort," Draco underlined the name on the board. "Harry gets the scar from the night he defeats Voldemort for the first time."
"The scar was caused by Harry's mother sacrificing herself to save Harry." Ron said. "It connected Harry to Voldemort. That has to be stronger than a mark on one of his servants."
"So the marks aren't equal," Harry shrugged. "I still killed Voldemort."
"But that's the point," Hermione cried out. "Snape must have been going by the prophecy that said you had to kill Voldemort because he marked you. Snape thought if you switched marks he could just take your place. But the magic was on your side because it realized that he had taken the stronger mark. How long did it take you to shake off the stunning curse?"
"Only a few minutes," Harry realized. "Just a few minutes, really. That's all."
"Yes," Hermione smiled. "Your magic grew stronger to make up for the loss of your powerful mark."
"Let's go through the fight then," Ron looked at the three spells. "Harry shouts Expelliarmus which is supposed to unarm an opponent. Snape yells Diffindo which is supposed to sever an object or a spell or in dire circumstances a person. Voldemort yells the killing curse."
"The question is," Draco looked at board, "who had the strongest magic at the time?"
"It wasn't Snape," Hermione drew a line through his name. "Snape was not as strong as Voldemort because he had just gotten the scar and weakened his magic, even if he didn't know it."
"All of our lines of magic connected," Harry said. "Then they merged into Snape. He exploded then because he wasn't strong enough to push back. The magic was trying to equal power between us, not realizing that I didn't want it to be equal."
"But once Snape scatters, what does that do to Harry?" Ron asked. "Does his magic increase still? Is that why he's been all super-power lately?"
"I don't know," Hermione pursed her lips. "The equalizing magic should wear off after a while, but this trade was big. This trade was so big that it required Snape to adopt Harry and bond with him, then use a powerful witch to monitor the trade which needed blood spilled to be enacted."
Harry looked down at the Dark Mark. "It - it doesn't hurt anymore," he faltered. "But this means that I'm responsible for Snape's scattering. I thought it was Voldemort, but I had the most power because I – I won. If I hadn't gone in there, Snape would still be alive."
"Nonsense," Hermione straightened, her old confidence back. "Snape would have died without your help. Now, he's just scattered. We still are going to need a wizard who can re-gather someone, but now that we know it's the marks, we should trace that. Snape's been scattered to places connected with his new mark, I bet you anything."
"So where do we search?" Harry asked though he had a sinking feeling he knew the answer.
"I'm sorry," Hermione gave him a sympathetic look. "But we should search places where you were connected to the scar. The place your parents died, the Ministry of Magic where Sirius died, the Chamber of Secrets, maybe Diagon Alley..."
"The Dursleys," Harry's face fell. "That's where we have to go first."
"Why?" Ron asked.
"Because it's Snape with my scar and it would take him somewhere that I would never want to go," Harry sank down in the chair Luna had vacated. "I thought I'd never have to go there again."
His friends said nothing.
"This is just so typical of Snape," Harry pushed back the tantrum that trembled throughout him to be expressed. "Doing what he wants when he wants. If he hadn't switched marks, none of this would have happened. I would have fought Voldemort and won, and we'd all be getting ready for Valentine's Day in a few weeks instead of hiding out here."
"You don't know that," Hermione said, "and you can't prove it. You might not have been strong enough to win, even with your scar."
"Maybe, but I don't like the other mark," Harry pulled his sleeve over the Dark Mark. "I feel like I'm wearing the sign of the evil that I tried to defeat."
Ron and Hermione shared a look, but then she turned back to her book.
"We need to sleep here tonight," she said.
"They'll come looking here for you tomorrow," Draco said. "We need to leave before daybreak. We can sleep in the woods if we need to."
Ron yawned as he straightened. "The car can hold four. I'll fly behind on my broom. Tomorrow night we can sneak around the Durleys and see what we find."
"I'll have more information then," Hermione took an empty seat and reached for one of the journals.
"Mione, you have to sleep," Ron insisted.
"I will," Hermione started reading. "But first I need to know what kind of things Snape knew about Harry. What did he find in all his research?"
"Go to bed, mate," Ron told Harry. "I'll take care of her. You go sleep with Luna."
"Lovely," Draco reached for the empty teacups. "I guess I'll be the only one huddled alone tonight. Just me and my one eye."
"Oh, hush," Hermione told him.
Harry went into the dark bedroom and stripped down to his shirt and shorts and climbed into bed with Luna. She was deep asleep, but Harry pulled close to her.
He had never felt so alone, betrayed, and helpless. Even in the dark, he kept seeing pictures of himself in Snape's lab and the writing on Hermione's board. The journals were full of him, someone had stolen his scar, and he was going back to a place where he had never been loved.
He had never before felt less like a person.